Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board Chairwoman Ronnie Caplane is retiring from state service at the end of April. She was appointed commissioner in 2003 by Governor Gray Davis, reappointed in 2009 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and appointed Chairwoman by Governor Jerry Brown in 2011.
During her tenure on the Appeals Board, the California workers’ compensation laws underwent two major reforms. The first came with SB 899 in 2004; later, as Chairwoman, she presided over the first judicial body to review cases that fell under SB 863’s landmark 2013 reforms.
“Ronnie Caplane managed WCAB through significant legislative changes, and has made valuable contributions to improving the workers’ compensation system,” said DIR Director Christine Baker.
Commissioner Caplane was admitted to the State Bar in 1975 after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and UC Hastings College of Law. She was an associate attorney for Lewis, Rouda and Lewis from 1976 to 1978 and then a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division from 1979 to 1982. Caplane was also a partner with Bruyneel and Caplane from 1983 to 1985, and a freelance writer and columnist for East Bay area publications the Piedmonter and the Montclarion from 1992 to 2006. She has published essays in newspapers throughout the country including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the Recorder, Legal Times, and various Jewish publications. Her essays have also appeared in several anthologies.
She has also served as a member and President of the Piedmont School Board. Her leadership in education and work to improve the East Bay community led Assemblywoman Wilma Chan to name her Woman of the Year in 2004. Her commitment to public education and to restore California to its status as a national leader led Caplane to pursue a run for the California Assembly.
In 2006, she made an unsuccessful run for a seat in the Assembly, coming in third with 12.5 percent of the vote in a five-way Democratic primary won by Assembly Member Sandré Swanson.
Commissioner Caplane suffered the tragic loss of her husband Joe Remcho – a prominent Bay Area lawyer and influential adviser to many of California’s most powerful politicians – in January 2003 as a result of a helicopter crash in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta while he was the solo pilot of the craft. At the time of his death he was a partner in the San Leandro law firm of Remcho, Johansen & Purcell. For two decades, the firm has represented the state Legislature in redistricting matters and other cases involving voter initiatives, term limits and campaign finance. Remcho’s clients included Gov. Gray Davis, Attorney General Lockyer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Mayor Willie Brown, the former state Assembly speaker. After his death she wrote a series of “grief columns” that drew an overwhelming response from readers.
Commissioner Caplane volunteered thousands of hours for a myriad of community organizations including Oakland’s Temple Sinai, HEROS, the Henry Robinson Center and the Piedmont schools. She created a minority law school scholarship through the Bar Association of San Francisco in her husband’s honor.
Following retirement, she will be joining Zenith Insurance Company as a Vice President.